Losing It
by Starzki
Summary: A psychological autopsy of Vicious, why he became so evil, how he lost his soul. RR.
1. Beginnings

Disclaimer:  They're not mine, and I'm a little bummed about that.

Author's note:  While I wouldn't say I LIKED Vicious, his character is very intriguing.  I don't think that anyone is born evil, but some people slip into it more easily than others based on their circumstance. 

After I watched the Jupiter Jazz episodes (Sessions 12 and 13), my mind started racing.  If Spike and Vicious were ever friends, how did they become such great enemies?  The following is what I came up with.

This first chapter is the beginning, with more to come soon.  Feel free to let me know what you think, how it's going.

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Losing It by Starzki

What is there to say?  What am I even trying to do?  Is this my rationalization for my future acts?  The explanation?  If so, to whom?  To the world?  Fellow members of the Red Dragon?  To Spike and Julia?  To myself?  I just feel the need to put down the thoughts in my head as they sour and spoil.  Maybe writing will exorcise the demons that plague my soul, if there is even one left to torment.

Now, here is the problem of where to begin.  I could start with the here and now of Titan, in the middle of this war of high ideals and body counts where nothing means anything.  But starting at the beginning is usually best.  That way I might even discover, myself, when I lost everything I ever cared for, when I lost caring that I cared.

Beginnings 

Like everyone else, I have my own sob story.  But as bad as my life started, it could have been redeemed.  I used to struggle for that redemption.  All that struggle turned into a struggle for survival.  I gave in and just lived to keep living, damn the consequences of my life.

I was born to a junkie mother who, even if she recalled the face of my father, she didn't recall his name.  I have vague recollections of this greasy woman who never looked at me.  She disappeared when I was 2.  She probably died.  From what I could gather, I was born in that slum on Mars where too many children lived and died and too few adults supervised or provided any real comfort.  No authorities were ever called to pick me up and deliver me out of the life of hell on the streets where I survived with the feral dogs on garbage scraps.  I never even had a name.  I claimed Vicious as my own when a stranger I had snapped my teeth at for coming too close sputtered that word in shocked surprise.

I learned quickly that absolutely no one could be counted on, but there did exist in me a desire to trust someone.  By the age of 5, I lived pretty well on my own.  I would not let anyone get close enough to take advantage of me.  I learned by watching people in the crowds, to see how others lived and moved through the world.  I could see everything, secret loves and fears and strengths and weaknesses that no one else took the time to see.  I was skilled and smart enough to learn how to steal and swindle in earnest.  I could afford to eat.  I clothed myself.  I found places to live.  I found ways to be human, which was more than I could say for most of the adults and other children who lived on the streets around me.  They kept part of themselves soft, fearing the total cold steel core required for survival alone.  I pitied and envied that softness at the same time.  I knew that they would never truly survive like that, but I also wondered what it would be like to see the world through eyes not turned to stone.

Meeting Spike was a fluke.  I was 6; he couldn't have been 4 yet.  I saw my own past when I looked at him.  He was a skinny kid, alone in the street, following around one of the alley dogs that I had "adopted."  He would wrestle it for food-like garbage scraps.  The dog's name was Spike.  Whenever I had food left to spare, I would share it with some of the bigger, meaner-looking dogs.  They, in turn, would come to my aid whenever any of the older kids started in on me.  I called the dog to me and the kid came with.

The boy was filthy.  His dark ringlets of hair framed a face just as dark with dirt and grime.  He looked at me with such hunger that I felt pity.  It was actually a kind of pity for my former self.  I knew that there was nothing that this little boy could do to hurt me.  He was just alone, left to die a hard death. 

Some of the street vendors in the area knew me well enough to just give me the food that I would steal anyway.  I stole from the other vendors.  That day, my pockets were bulging with beef jerky.

I took a strip and offered it to the dog, "Here you go, Spike."

The kid snatched the dried meat so quickly that the dog was two bites in before he realized he was eating air.  "Excuse me," I said, suppressing a laugh, "Is your name Spike?"

"Yes," said the boy with a full mouth.  A few more attempts to feed the dog ended in the same way.  "Look, if you keep taking the food, the dog will bite you," I warned.  The kid let me give the rest to the dog.

I turned to walk away and the boy followed me.  I didn't mind.  I guess I felt that it was fitting in some way, meant to be.  The kid was definitely quick and my mind began to race with 2-person operations we could pull off to get more food and money than I could myself.  I felt a temporary warm glow of generosity in helping someone else where no one else had helped me.  I do remember feeling those types of thoughts even though I don't think I could feel them now, even if I set my whole being to try.

"Ok, you can come with me.  But you have to do everything I say.  Got it?"

The boy nodded, eyes still hungry and fixed on me.

"What's your name?" I asked.

The boy looked frightened, ready to cry.  "I don't remember," he finally blurted.

"I'll just keep calling you Spike then," I said.  "I'm Vicious.  That's my name.  You got any parents?"  He shook his head.  "Me neither.  I take care of myself pretty good.  And if you do everything I say, I'll help you, too."  A look of naked relief melted Spike's fearful brown eyes and he shot me a toothy grin.

"I'll do everything you say," he promised.

Already having survived on the streets for years, I knew the ebb and flow of things, what the demands were and where to find certain supplies.  I knew where and how to steal and where and to whom to fence my loot.  I knew how to stay away from the police, how to become invisible, even when they looked right at me.  I knew how to find people when others needed to see them.  I knew the ins and outs of survival on the edge.

From our first meeting, Spike cleaved himself to me, became my hip attachment.  He was really smart, a quick learner.  He did everything I told him and knew how to improvise on his feet.  He became the best pickpocket I had ever seen.  Some evenings, after the rush hours crowds had thinned, his haul could feed us for a week.  We worked well together, knowing one another well enough to tell what the other would think or do or say ten steps ahead of any circumstance.  The police were never onto us.

From the beginning, Spike was unfailingly loyal to me.  The hunger never left his eyes.  He was hungry for my approval, for a kind word or gesture.  He looked up to me like I was his older brother.  I began to relax around him in a way I had never relaxed around anyone before.  I trusted him and his loyalty.  Even now, I don't regret that trust.  The iron inside of me that kept me alive and fed for so long started to bend.  I would never be soft, but I could feel what other people felt for the first time. 

I wasn't always so cold to others.  Even though I can't bring myself to regret my loss of caring, I do remember those days with a kind of nostalgia. 

Spike trusted me, too.  But unlike me, I found that he was also willing to trust others.  I told him time after time never to trust anyone.  The people we met would only hurt us.  But even back then, Spike had a light, easy-going manner.  90% of what I lectured to him about trust and other human emotions rolled off of him.

Since meeting him, I envied Spike.  He would never have to learn the streets like I had, the hard way.  He could afford to try and make other connections to people because I would always be there for him.  I would have been, too.  Spike was my only human credential.  No one in the world would have vouched for me, been able to prove that I'd been here, been real and alive and a person like everyone else except for Spike.  He was, and will be, the only person who ever really knew me, the person in me.  And I was the first person to ever know him.  It was just him and me for those few years.  It was the only time in my life that I would venture to call "happy."  It was probably the only time in my life that I could have made something good happen.

Things would change when I was around 11 and Spike was around 8, and for me, not for the better.  A new convenience store went up on our block, two doors down from the building we were squatting in.  A man and his young wife, the owners of the store, were the first adults to take any interest in us.  Actually, it was the wife's (her name was Annie) interest in Spike, but I was around enough that she began to know me, too.  I never trusted Annie or her husband, but Spike constantly hung around the store and took to Annie like she was his long lost big sister.  He confided in her.  About what, I was never sure.  Mere weeks after they opened shop, Spike and I had full run of the store and a place to stay whenever the vacant apartments we stayed in got rented or otherwise inhabited.

While Annie adored Spike, she was never quite sure what to make of me.  I kept her at arm's length.  So even though she would tsk at some of my more antisocial behavior, the fact I'd helped Spike for so long allowed me continued access to her store, which was becoming a hub of the neighborhood.

It did not take long for me to notice that Annie controlled all of the store's business and her husband, even though he was always around, seemed to control something else.

I pumped Spike for information.  "Just tell me, Spike, the store's a front, right?"

"A front?" he asked.

"Yeah, whatever money Annie's husband makes in the back, they can say the store made it so the police and government don't find out."

"How do _you_ know?" Spike asked defensively.  I was mildly irked at his feelings of loyalty to these strangers, but the gears had begun to turn in my head.  I was hatching a plan.  "Big guys in dark suits go in and out of that store all of the time, right?"

"Yeah…"

"And never buy anything?"

"Uh-huh."  A knowing realization spread over Spike's face.

"And Annie's husband never _does_ anything in the store, just talks to people.  And how much stuff have you seen actually _sold_?"

"Maybe they have a lot of money to start out with," Spike tried, not even believing the words as he said them.  I smiled.  "What are you thinking about doing?" he asked in apprehension, eyebrows knitting together.

"We can let them know we know about what's going on.  We'll say we'll go to the police and tell if they don't cut us in."  Spike's eyes went wide with alarm and dismay.

"That's snitching!  I'm no snitch!  Plus, Annie's never done anything bad to us.  Plus, it sounds bad, like we might get hurt."

"Don't worry.  We won't _really_ go to the police.  We'll just say we will.  It will be less work and more money for us."  I patted Spike's shoulder.  "I promise it will work."

Eventually, Spike calmed down.  He couldn't bring himself to distrust me.  If I was testing him, his loyalty at that time, he passed.  I don't know if I would have done it without him.

The next day I strode into Annie's store with a silent Spike on my heels.  Annie's face lit up to see Spike, but then darkened when she saw our serious expressions.

"We want to talk to your husband," I demanded with a confidence that came from youth and ignorance.

"Vicious, he's a little busy now, but if you come back later this afternoon, we can see about that," answered Annie in a condescending maternal tone that set my teeth on edge.  I had lived my own life so far and would not, could not let anyone who was duller and less connected to life and survival tell me what to do.

"Is he in there?" I seethed, nodding at the back door I had seen the suits entering and exiting every day.

"Now is not a good time," said Annie, rising from her seat behind the counter, slightly angry, slightly scared.  "Spike?"

"We have business, Annie," Spike told her, following my lead.

We reached the door before Annie could stop us.  It wasn't locked.  The cold metal core that kept me strong, kept me alive so far supported me as I put one foot in front of the other and walked into the room.  If I had ever been scared in my life, it was in those seconds.  Annie's husband was sitting behind a dark, mahogany desk.  The whole room looked like it belonged more in an office building than in a corner Git 'N Go.  Another man sat in one of the leather-upholstered chairs.  I ignored him and sat in the other chair across from Annie's husband.  Spike stood at my side, his face betraying no fear or apprehension.  I felt proud to have him with me.

The men looked at us in expectant amusement, like the interruption was going to be a kind of interesting diversion.

"We know what this is," I said with a steady voice.  "We know what you're doing.  You have to cut us in if you want us to stay quiet."  Spike nodded in agreement.

"Oh?  And what exactly is this?" asked Annie's husband with a smile.

"A front for the Syndicate," I gave my best educated guess.

The men's smiles froze on their faces.  "If this were a syndicate, what's to stop us from killing you to keep you from talking?" asked Annie's husband.  Spike stiffened, but I didn't even blink.

"I told my cousin I was coming here and that if anything happened to me or Spike, to tell the cops you did it," I bluffed.

Both men chuffed laughing noises.  "A cousin, eh?"

"Yeah.  We're not actually family, but she'll notice if I'm gone," I replied, thinking quickly, making it hard for them to find a hole in my story, even if they asked around.

"Spike, tell your friend he doesn't know the depth of trouble he's getting himself into.  If he's smart, he'll stay out of this," Annie's husband said.

"Vicious isn't afraid of you and neither am I," Spike announced.  He suddenly grinned his most disarming smile, the one he used to part matronly tourists from their money.  "We promise not to tell if you do for us."

"What exactly do you think we _could_ do for you?" asked Annie's husband, eyes flashing with anger and annoyance.  The other man in the room held up his hand, indicating to Annie's husband that he needed to calm down.  This power dynamic was not lost on me.  It was this other man that I needed to be speaking with.

"What do you have?" I asked the stranger.

"Vicious and… Spike, is it?" he asked.  We both nodded solemnly.  "You two have courage.  And enough intelligence to see what the police haven't.  Do you have parents?"  We shook our heads.

"My name is Mao Yenrai.  I am a member of Red Dragon.  No one who comes against our clan is ever tolerated.  You have put yourselves into a dangerous position in opposing us.  But I respect that you came to us like men, without fear.  Therefore, I will give you the option of joining us, becoming members, yourselves.  You would no longer oppose us, but be one of us."

"What's in it for us?" I asked warily.

"We'll take you in, train you, give you places to sleep, food to eat, clothes to wear, and whatever else young men need.  But you'll work for us.  You'll do what we say, when we say it.  You'll be told all you need to know and you will not question us."  Annie's husband looked alarmed and shot Mao a look of contention.

"I'm not being generous or soft-hearted.  This is strictly a business deal," Mao told him.  "We need men who know the streets and who can work under the police's radar.  We've been needing them."  He turned back to us, "What do you say?"

Spike and I looked at each other, read each other's eyes.

"We'll do it," we said in unison and shook hands with Mao, our new boss.


	2. Transition

Chapter 2 of Losing It by Starzki. 

Author's Note:  This is the continuation of my fascination with Vicious.  From the series, I couldn't help but be surprised at his honesty.  He was very upfront about what he thought about the leadership of Red Dragon.  It just seemed that those around him never quite took him seriously until it was too late.  Anyway, that is how I came up with this chapter.

Transition 

If this were a movie, a video montage of our next few years would be appropriate here.  We started in Red Dragon as runners and mules, delivering messages, envelopes, and packages across the city.  We met important-looking men and got to know them and their habits.  Older members of this syndicate taught me and Spike how to fight.  Spike took immediately to the Jeet Kun Do and watched every Bruce Lee film in the archives at least 3 times, most of them more.  We learned to shoot guns and how to handle most other weapons.  I became partial to the katana, feeling it had a beauty and a style that I felt fit me.  We were sent to school for the first time.  It was a private, all boys' school.  It was filled with the sons of Red Dragon members and other boys who were, like us, up and coming gangster elite.  Spike and I became the nucleus that the other boys crowded around.  We had the true talent and survival skills.  We were the most respected in our age group, our generation of Red Dragon.  They liked me because they liked Spike's easy-going manner, friendliness, and fearless sense of adventure.  They respected Spike because they feared me a little, my cold and clean manner.

Girls had also started to notice us.  We had grown from spindly boys to lanky teens full of confidence and bravado.  I was always more successful in my exploits than Spike was.  I don't know what the psychology of girls of that age, but the more moody and silent I was, the more time and energy girls spent trying to save me from myself.  At least that is what they told themselves.  I always felt that the girls who threw themselves at me secretly hated themselves and expected me to confirm their beliefs and to treat them like the shit they felt they were.  Beyond the obvious physical pleasures to be found in the opposite sex, I could never bring myself to care enough to treat them any differently, with more or less respectful contempt, that I treated anything else. 

Spike was different.  Girls chased him for his indifferent attitude as well, but were always rewarded with charming friendliness.  It was mostly broken girls, results of hard home lives and varying degrees of abuse, who clamored for the attention of Red Dragon members.  These broken girls did not know how to handle Spike's kind attention.  Most felt flattered, but slightly mocked by his interest.  Girls left me in a kind of satisfied frustration, doomed to repeat their behavior for years.  Girls walked away from Spike mostly in a state of confusion, not sure how to look back into his soulful eyes.  Most of the time, Spike tried to make honest goes of his "relationships" whereas I bided my time until one girl got tired of me or another one came along.

By the time I was 16, I began to get antsy to work out from under the thumb of the senior ranking members of Red Dragon.  I was given permission to set up a scheme of my own.  I was given an assignment to find a way to acquire real estate from a rival syndicate.  I knew what my ranking officers wanted and expected of me.  They wanted me to be clever enough to pull off the deal with a low or non-existent body count (when it could have been done in half the time and with less risk to us to take out some key people) and with as few resources as possible to be provided to me. 

I realized that I was expected to have reservations about danger and violence because most people do.  I also knew it made others slightly uncomfortable to discover that I had never really developed a morality about violence.  However, when it came to the Syndicate, I felt that I could bide my time and fake it for as long as I needed to in order to be considered reliable enough.  I knew that violent behavior and rash decision-making often went hand-in-hand.  But, I wasn't really ever intentionally violent.  However, the quickest, easiest ways to get what I needed involved extreme force.  I looked at violence through the lens of time- and resource-management, which was uncommon at my age.  So I played along to their ridiculous notions of propriety and hid my preferences. 

I recruited Spike and a few other classmates for that first job and it went off flawlessly, with no one dead or even slightly injured.  Word quickly spread about my leadership abilities.

Red Dragon was impressed.  I was deemed a kind of "management material" and given more jobs of my own.  Most of the time, I included Spike, whenever he indicated that he wanted to come along, and they always went according to plan.

Well, almost always.  The first time I killed a man, I did it to save Spike.  Getting older in Red Dragon meant getting dirtier, more mired into its vice.  They liked me clean and innocent when I first started planning jobs; they wanted me to worry about taking lives.  Now my ranking hypocrites wanted me _not_ to care and place loyalty to Red Dragon and the responsibility of finishing the job above what they thought were my qualms about using violence against others.  In a way, Red Dragon set me up to my first kill.  I was ordered to boost a storefront, told that there was no security from midnight to 1 A.M.  I saw right through their lie and packed live firepower even though I had never been substantially armed for a job before.

A schoolmate, Bry, accompanied Spike and me to the store.  We arrived early and I was surprised to see the evening shift guard leave without a replacement.  We got to work and I remained vigilant.  However, an enormous and heavy box distracted me enough that the guard who was mysteriously detained but not completely hindered from arriving at work got the jump on us.  I caught his frightened, rabbit-like movements as he stepped out from behind his cover.  He fired and missed me by a foot.  He turned the gun on Spike, his aim improving.  I had fired my own gun before I had even realized I was holding it and the guard was down.  I calmly directed Spike and Bry to finish what we had started as quickly as possible so we could get out.  I remembered Spike's eyes were alive and happy.  He wasn't worried about his survival, but excited by the prospect of adventure, of being a part of a life less ordinary.

We were out of there by the time the guard's backup came and were back at headquarters by the time the police got involved.  My superiors were impressed.  I had successfully navigated another one of their hoops.  I felt ill.  I didn't care about the security guard.  It was a kill or be killed situation.  I had my job; he had his.  Fortunately for me, I was better.  I was nauseated by the games that the syndicate was playing.  I hated that they would so willingly risk my life, make me prove myself to them, while feigning surprise and horror at what they had set up.  Even then, I knew that they had no business dictating to me.  I would survive long after their deaths because I wasn't afraid of life or who I was or what I needed to do.

Any burgeoning loyalty I had to Red Dragon wilted and died that night.  Mao saw me as a puppet, thought he had me on strings.  I knew that I would just have to bide my time, play their stupid games, until I could take over and run this group my way, the right way.

After we returned, I was immediately taken to speak to the Van, three mummified men, ridiculous in their thoughts and ideals, relics of a time gone by.

I was informed that I would go far in Red Dragon.  I was going to be allowed to sit in on the meetings of the highest-ranking officers.  I was being groomed for the leadership role everyone knew I would take.  Spike was not invited.  I was the idea man.  Spike was only around and involved because I asked him.  It was generally understood that, but for me, Spike would leave.  He loved and respected his life there and in turn, was loved and respected by Red Dragon elite.  He would have been picked for leadership over me if he had wanted it, but the desire and initiative wasn't there in Spike.  He stayed for me.

As I moved up in the ranks, so did Spike, a reluctant and willing participant.  He would take the insane risks no one else would.  Life had tested him already, almost as hard as it had tested me, and he knew when, where, and how to push the limit.  He lived for the rush and excitement of the risk.

When I was 17 we began flying lessons.  Red Dragon gave us each mono racers, taught the basics, then taught the advanced maneuvers.  For me, it was slightly more exciting than driving a car.  But for Spike, it was like he was in his element, doing what he was born to do.  He flew as often as he could and became the best flier there was in the Syndicate.

Spike would often fly off for long periods on his own.  I joined him when I could, but was kept busy by gang business.  He would just spend the time in quiet darkness.  I suspected he was looking for something, wanting something he could name.

When I turned 20, I began to settle more comfortably into my life.  Red Dragon continued their grooming, but began to accept the more ruthless behaviors that I had previously kept hidden.  They could never find flaw in my results.  What confused them was my refusal to say one thing, then act differently.  It was my contention that internal morality, what you told yourself you believed, was nothing without external morality.  Men are their actions.  They are what they do, not what they intend.  I could not lie to myself as they did.  I made conscious decisions in my life.  I would pay the prices for my mistakes and reap the rewards if I was correct.  But age and experience did help me to predict hypocrisy and deceit in others.  Where I found it useless in myself, I discovered ways to exploit it in others if I ever needed to.

When I was 21, I met Julia.  A coup from a rival syndicate took out several members from our upper echelon including Annie's husband and the head officer under the Van.  It was then, in that reorganization meeting, that Mao moved up to accept the leadership position from the late Jurgis Wren.  That night, Jurgis was represented by his daughter, Julia.  After the ritual turning over of power, leadership, respect, and whatever else, to Mao, she took her seat next to me.  It was impossible not to notice how beautiful she was, surprisingly untouched by the stain of the criminal life of her father.

Each top tier member gave a brief eulogy for Jurgis.  I rolled my eyes at each man who spoke.  Every man there would have killed Jurgis themselves if they'd had the opportunity.

"Those hypocritical bastards can't wait for their new positions," Julia whispered at me, her words coated with bitter cynicism.

My own thought spoken aloud made me smirk.  She was really pretty and I had never met a woman speak so honestly about a situation she would have rather not endured.  I met her eyes and saw myself reflected.  Like me, her eyes were open, understanding, unafraid, and disgusted by the behavior of those who thought themselves fit to make decisions in our lives.

"Hungry?" I asked.

A wicked smile played across her face.  "Let's blow this place," she said and we left right in the middle of the meeting.  I couldn't wait to know her.

Julia quickly became a new fixture in my life.  She stayed with me because she knew I would never lie to her or deceive her.  In turn, I stayed with her because she was genuine.  If she got mad, she lashed out.  If she was happy, she'd sing.  If she wanted me, she would drag me to her apartment by my tie.  She was exciting to be around.  Julia was never reckless or impulsive, but she lived every experience thrown at her to the fullest.  She stood in the fire of life in all of its glory and ugliness and relished every up and every down.  I suspected that life with Jurgis had been tense, everything building up to the day that she lost him.  I was glad to be along for the ride.

Spike and Julia met a couple of weeks after Julia and I started dating.  I could see that Spike was struck by her, but that made him no different than the majority of men who saw Julia.  On the other hand, she was less than impressed with Spike, but was nice to him for my sake.  He was so different from any man she knew that she couldn't get him.  He had no ambition, no ulterior motive to get to know her and treat her kindly.  She initially confused his gentle respect with weakness.

Soon after meeting Julia, Spike was sent on a secret mission to Earth.  I was otherwise engaged in errands for the Van.  Word came to me that there had been an accident with Spike, he had been ambushed outside of a gate, crash-landed, and wasn't expected to survive.  I dropped everything and rushed to him.  I felt heavy, like my insides were turning to stone.  I wondered if it was the feeling of sorrow or fear.  I wondered if it could even be possible for Spike to die.  To be dead when I wasn't there.  I had made his life possible.  It was because of me he was who he was.  I didn't understand how he could die without me.

When I got to Earth, Spike was just out of surgery.  He was surprisingly well after his ordeal.  His lost eye had been quickly and easily replaced, even with the shitty resources of Earth.  It was hard to tell that anything had changed.

I was there when the anesthetic wore off and he opened his eyes.

"What time is it?" Spike asked.

"You don't look as bad as I thought you would," I replied, feeling lighter.

"You're as ugly as ever," he huffed back at me.  "My mono racer?"

"Totaled," I laughed.  "Red Dragon can set you up with a new one, but you'll probably have to buy it here."

"Here?  Earth?  What could even be left on this planet?"

"Well, it's up-to-date enough that you survived a crash that no one thought anyone could live through.  I thought I would be bringing a body back."

"Sorry, not this time," Spike sighed, his lids drooping.

I laughed and squeezed his hand.  "I didn't like it when I thought I wouldn't be seeing you again," I admitted.

He lifted an eyebrow at me, "Julia is rubbing off on you."

"Maybe," I said and grew serious.  "You're the only one who I care lives or dies in this world.  That won't ever change."

Spike half-smiled at me before falling back to sleep.


	3. Beginning of the End

Authors Note:  Ok!  This last chapter was why I wrote this story.  Like I wrote before, the Jupiter Jazz episodes just sent my mind a-buzzing.  I am (for reasons beyond me) obsessed with the Vietnam War.  I could imagine that the war on Titan was similar to Vietnam.  So after everything I have read or seen or heard about the Vietnam War, it seemed to me that those who fought were changed by their experiences.  So, even if Vicious could have been redeemed in some way before he fought, wartime experiences would have pushed him over the edge. 

The spiel that Vicious gives about the embodiment of ideas and words into flesh was taken directly from Elaine Scarry's "The Body in Pain."  It seemed appropriate to me that Vicious would agree with her theories.

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Beginning of the End 

The next year brought news of war brewing on Titan.  Like everything else, it was just a pissing match disguised in honor.  The Van determined that I would enlist.  When I came back, they thought I would be prepared and experienced enough to take over some real power in Red Dragon.  I didn't argue.  The Red Dragon had major investments within the armed forces and no real harm would come to me unless I sought it.  I knew that when I came back, I would be in a better position to wrest complete control.

Julia was furious at me for going along with their plans.  She was tired of seeing me play their games, indulge their hypocrisies.

"Do you love me?" she demanded as we ate dinner in her apartment.  I paused mid chew.  I never had given any serious examination to what our relationship was.  To me, it had been an interesting diversion from work, and not a lot more.

"What do you mean, love?  I don't think I know what that word really means."

Julia looked hurt.  "It's a FEELING."

A frustrated anger overtook me.  "What use are feelings without actions?"  I rose from my chair and walked to her.  I grabbed her upper arms and made her stand.  I backed her to the nearest wall.  Her eyes searched mine, unafraid.  "Ask me what I will do, not how I feel.  I will take care of you.  I will give you respect.  I will be honest.  I will do anything you ask me to."

She nodded, "I know you will.  But I may need more.  You like me how I am.  You like me cynical and bitter and cold."

"I like you honest.  I like you strong.  I like you fearless"

"I need you to want me to be better.  I need you to want me to be more.  I don't think I can be happy in this life.  I could do more, do things differently with this life if I had encouragement.  If something was expected of me."

I gave her a hard look, not really understanding what she was asking of me.

Julia eyed me back warily and finally said, "I need you to be more, too.  I need to know you.  I want you to give me more than actions, I want your feelings, too."

I move my right hand to her waist and grabbed her hip and pulled her close to me.  I brought up my left hand and caressed and held her face.  "To me, this is feeling," I said as I kissed her deeply.  Julia's body gave a token protest before melting into me.

 It was then I realized that she wanted too much from me.  I was at peace with that.  We had been good for each other while it had lasted.  It would only be a matter of time before she gave up on me.

I had 6 weeks of officer training before I departed for Titan.  Spike and Julia saw me off to meet my squadron.  Julia's goodbye was quick.

"I feel so tacky.  'The girl back home.'  I'll never forgive you," she smiled at me and pressed a package into my hand.  "Something to remember me by."

"God, you are tacky," I laughed and she kissed me.

Spike stepped up and took my shoulders in his hands.  He looked into me the way he had my entire life.  Words weren't necessary.

"Kick some ass, man," Spike finally said.  I nodded and stepped onto the ship.  As we took off, I waved.

I don't know what I expected out of the army, maybe just a change of pace, but I was disappointed.  It was just another group of hypocritical assholes pretending to be a family, all the while stabbing each other in the back at every opportunity.  The only real difference I saw was the surface legitimacy and the broader social values being whored to us.

Weeks after arriving on Titan, I saw action.  It wasn't all that different from working for Red Dragon.  Men fought and killed and died.  Some were good men, some were evil, most were somewhere in between.  But I built a respect for the soldiers around me.  They were doing what they could to survive, helping one another and joining together tightly for a common purpose.  It reminded me of my childhood.  I liked it.

I was given command of a platoon.  A few successful missions later, I was promoted out of combat.

The ridiculousness of moving good leaders away from the fight paled in comparison to the other ridiculous actions and skewed thought processes I saw in high-ranking officials.  They thought nothing of hating and betraying the men doing the fighting.  They traded men's lives like children traded baseball cards.  These men, those had seen no fighting or combat and who had bought their ranks, wouldn't have survived alone in a city, much less known how to deal with an exploding world.

These jackasses all talked high ideals of freedom and democracy.  But I saw them for what they were.  Freedom and democracy (and whatever other key words they bandied about) were justification for using men as fodder.  Men were leaving Titan with wounds and scars.  Some were leaving in body bags.  Those wounds, those scars, those bodies all became "freedom" in the flesh.  "Hey man, why don't you have an arm?"  "Lost it for freedom, man."  Without the wounds and death, freedom and whatever other ideals we were supposedly fighting for meant nothing.  They were just abstract thoughts that floated around without anything substantial tying them down.  People, bodies, flesh, blood anchored those ideals to reality.  No one could even see that we were truly fighting for was who got to control those silly words.  They were insubstantial words that were worth less than breath used to utter them, less than the ink and paper used to convey them

But what confused me the most was how unassumingly most soldiers swallowed the rhetoric.  They had no idea that they were toy soldiers, pawns in an elaborate and deadly game of one-upmanship.  Nothing would really change if either side won.  Just one side's conceptualization of freedom would become common. 

When I found out about the medical experiments being carried out on our own soldiers for biological warfare, I requested to be sent back into combat. 

Any faith I had in humanity at all was lost in that war.  I would rather confront life and death honestly, the way the real men did on the front lines, than have to endure the presence politicians in fatigues.

It wasn't that I was completely caught up within the ugly politics of war.  I had just expected more from a legitimate agency.  I thought that they held themselves to higher standards than did the Syndicate.  I had discovered that honest men were just as criminal as the rest of us.  I preferred the honest dishonesty of my criminal life at home.

I had been getting mail from Spike.  He was fairly regular, keeping me up on Red Dragon business.  I suspect Mao asked him to keep me informed.  Spike would also tell me what he and Julia were up to.  It seemed that they had become better friends in my absence. 

Julia also wrote sporadically.  Her letters were cordial, but grew more distant.  The music box she gave me on the day I left was a pleasant reminder of her.  I missed her, in a way.  I knew I would miss her even more when I got back home and she would tell me that she didn't want me any more.  It was only a matter of time.

When I had 3 months left "in country," Gren came into our squadron.  He adopted me immediately and kept himself tucked under my protective wing.  He reminded me of Spike, his open friendliness, so I allowed it.  Gren was mad for music, it was the one topic he couldn't get enough of.  He took to calling me Sid, after a late 20th century punk band guitarist.  I found myself liking him, for what it was worth.  And I didn't mind hearing the excitement in his voice when he talked about playing and his plans for the future.

"Sid, you should come hear me play when we both get out of here.  I promise that you won't be disappointed.  I'm going to get a group of guys I know together after the war and tour the little clubs and bars.  I'll let you know when we come by your home town."

I would never encourage him, his faith in me.  His blind optimism and positive outlook were pleasantly foreign, but uninvited.  But I did look out for him whenever I could.

Two months later, Spike's letters changed.  He still talked about Red Dragon, but he stopped mentioning what he was doing and he never wrote about Julia.  I could see right away that they had started a relationship.  As soon as I could, I made a call.

"What's up with you and Julia?" I asked straight out.

Spike was at a loss for words.

"Look, if you're dating Julia behind my back, I don't really mind.  I just wish you would be honest about it."

"How could you not mind?" Spike asked with what sounded like real anger.  I felt my eyes narrow.

"She wants too much.  I knew she wouldn't stay with me.  She won't stay with you, either.  Not unless you give up everything for her, your whole life.  Spike, she doesn't really want us.  She wants an impossible dream"

"Impossible?"

"She wants truth, beauty, love, and freedom.  All of the great myths in life."

"Maybe she deserves them."

"Maybe we all do, but no one actually gets them.  Some delude themselves into thinking they have them, but no one actually gets to have them."

"Maybe we won't mind the delusion."

"Spike, I've never known you to lie to yourself.  It's what cowards do.  It's what people who are too scared to see the reality of life do.  Life for us will always be struggle and survival.  We don't know anything else.  Neither of us is really alive without it.  I'd rather be awake and actually live than to be dead inside and dream." 

"I've never really cared about life and survival the way you did.  But, I'll live for her."

"We're more alike than you admit, Spike," I hissed.  I was working myself up into real anger.  Things had been easier for him than for me and now I was here, on this torn moon, listening to my only friend give up on real life to chase phantom butterflies.

Spike sighed with sad frustration and I knew that I wouldn't get through to him.  I knew that he thought he had found what he had been looking for, what he had always been so hungry for. 

I closed my eyes in frustrated sadness, already feeling the stone heaviness of loss set in me as we said our goodbyes and hung up.  But then a competing emotion overwhelmed my senses.  It was a kind of wrath at both Julia and Spike.

I played Julia's music box for the last time for myself and felt nostalgia for a life that I would not have.  I knew that happiness would always be beyond me.  I had been content with survival with those who knew me.  Now that would soon be over, too.

I would never lie to myself. 

I was the only thing that kept Spike around.  Now that he had Julia, he would give himself completely over to her because that was what she wanted.  I would be alone again.  The anger simmered inside of me, orange and red.  After everything I had done, everything I had planned so carefully, I would be alone.  I would be alone with those dead hypocrites in the Syndicate while those who had really been living cut me out of their lives so they could dream because I reminded them of the honest struggle it was to live every day.  Spike would end up betraying me.  I would find a way to betray him back.

When I got back to camp, Gren beamed at me with his soulful eyes.  I hated him right then because he reminded me of Spike.  I adored him, too, his innocence.  I made a pact with myself.  If I could destroy this young man, I would be deserving of Spike's betrayal.  I'll betray this Spike so that the real Spike would deserve all of the pain I knew I would cause him.

In doing so, in hurting Spike, I would also be avenging Gren.  In a way, had it not been for Spike and the steps to leave me he would eventually take, Gren would have continued on towards his blindingly bright future without impediments.  In revenge for Gren, I would be justified in any action I took to make Spike stay, to keep him with me or else eliminate him permanently.

My last shred of humanity died as I put a transmitter and recorder in Julia's music box.  I knew that Gren would not be able to resist it.  I would gather information on him, get dates and times of places he would go.  I could invent some lies of treasonous behavior to mix in with the truth and report him.  I would be doing Gren a favor, in all actuality.  I would force him to look life in its ugly, complex face and decide whether or not it was worth living, whether he was worthy enough to survive.

I knew as Gren took the box that I had just given it all away.  I lost it all.  There will be no redemption.  I try hard to care.

The end.  Thanks for reading!  I hope that you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it.  -- Starzki


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